Advantest Again Climbs List Of Largest Semiconductor Equipment Suppliers

Strong Customer Demand for Advantest's Memory and SoC Testers Drives Continued Robust Growth

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Advantest Corporation (TSE: 6857, NYSE: ATE), the world's largest supplier of semiconductor test equipment, today announced another milestone in its dramatic growth trend. According to VLSI Research Inc., Advantest climbed two slots in the market-research firm's annual list of the world's top 10 semiconductor equipment suppliers. Its remarkable nine-place jump in just two years places Advantest in the top four for 2004, surpassed only by Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron Ltd. and ASML.

Advantest's rapid rise up the VLSI Research rankings is attributable both to continued strong demand for its industry-leading memory testers and to the company's fast-growing share of the system-on-chip (SoC) test market—due in large part to the introduction of its innovative T2000 open-architecture SoC test platform. "Advantest continues to display an impressive ability to provide the industry with the test technology it needs while pursuing lower cost of test, improved interoperability and other key test-capability advancements," said VLSI Research CEO G. Dan Hutcheson. "We expect its great performance to continue to improve as the company's technology becomes increasingly essential to helping IC makers achieve critical time-to-market goals."

According to R. Keith Lee, president and CEO of Advantest America, Inc., "This development is clearly significant for Advantest, as well as for our customers, who continue to benefit from our combination of technology leadership and innovation. As the VLSI Research report indicates, we have grown our sales nearly fourfold in the last two years—an achievement we accredit to our proven ability to anticipate market needs, delivering the right solutions at the right time."

About Advantest
Advantest Corporation is the world's largest supplier of automatic test equipment to the semiconductor industry. Advantest's SoC, logic, memory, mixed-signal and RF testers and device handlers are integrated into the most advanced semiconductor fabrication lines in the world. Founded in Tokyo in 1954, Advantest established its North American subsidiary in 1982 and its European subsidiary in 1984. More information is available at www.advantest.com